Empty Rooms and Dinners

Tick...tok...tick...tok...

         The gears of the clock resonated its ever so annoying sound inside a near-empty pink bedroom. I stared at the dusty ceiling, counting the hours to go before dinner time comes. Almost everyday it was like this- me, trapped inside a locked house, feeling so bored and lonely, wondering when will my parents ever let me out of this cage...a cage of four pink walls with no one to talk to nor have any means to. My cellular phone plan was cut off so that I can only receive outside calls but completely unable to send even a single text message. Hell, my laptop is even practically useless without internet connection. The only people I was allowed to talk to were my family.

         My phone vibrates, and I pick it up from the heap of pillows that my brothers used to have near my bed. Everyday was so much alike the other that I can't even tell what day it is. I would stare at the ceiling until my alarm blares off to the music of Taylor Swift, signaling me that it is time to prepare dinner. 

     Everyday I wake up to a note on the bedside table which says my parents have gone to work...skipping the detail that they've already locked all of the exits of this home. Then I would get up and heat the now cold coffee in my precious coffee maker, and fix myself some breakfast. After a bath, I would resume having a staring contest with the spiders in the ceiling, being totally an unproductive piece of meat caged in a cozy home.

       Sometimes, my days aren't as dull as this. Sometimes my parents would call, demanding that I dress up for dinner outside. But then again, I'm not really fond of dinner outside. Why? Because they have me talk to their friends, colleagues, and their sons. I don't like it. There's so much room for awkward conversations that I even consider trying to talk to my plate instead.


-Maria Elizabeth Perez